Google Gets Lady Gaga, Will.i.am for Free

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Google reportedly hooked Lady Gaga by showing her its "It Gets Better" campaign, and created a commercial for Google Chrome featuring the recording artist in a video love letter to her fans. Price paid to Lady Gaga? Nothing.

Similarly, Will.i.am from the group Black Eyed Peas opened up a Hangout in Google+ prior to a concert -- an event promoted by Google. Yet again, no money exchanged hands, AdAge reported. Instead, Google focused on stressing the mutual benefit of a Google/celebrity cross-promotional pairing, and it seems to be working. .

Lady Gaga's Manager, Troy Carter, spoke about the Chrome spot for which the two parties collaborated, and how the project came about when the Google team met with Gaga backstage after a concert to show her the "It Gets Better" campaign. "It touched her," and she "wanted to be associated with the company that's bold enough to make this sort of statement." As a result, they teamed up for the Chrome Commercial, and like Will, Troy told us, "We didn't get paid for that." The Google brand is an asset that celebrities want to be associated with.

The piece continued by highlighting how celebrities drew eyeballs to Twitter in its early days (also with no pay) because both sides saw the attraction and promotional possibilities. But there's something more going on here -- it's as if Google is a respected, reputable brand that most celebrities deem worthy. Is it the "Don't be evil" motto?

At least in Lady Gaga's case, it's not the first time she's been around Googlers and she may have already had some respect for what they do.